We were on our way to the Slackwater area of the C&O Canal
(mile 85) to look for signs of the Large-leaved Waterleaf ( a
fairly rare plant in Maryland) when I noticed a fellow resting by
the roadside with what appeared to be a huge bright yellow backpack
that seemed to have a wheel attached to it. It looked like he even
had a little dog with him. We made our turn and went on to
thinking about things other than eccentric hikers.

Approaching home later that afternoon, I noticed the same guy
was headed down-river on the C&O towpath. Had I not seen him
earlier in the day, I doubt whether I would have even noticed him
as I drove by, as the canal bed is now wooded and one doesn't tend
to notice people over on the towpath. I parked the car at home and
headed over to the path to find out what this guy was up to. We
went up to him and said hello and asked a couple of questions of
the kind that probably almost everyone who did stop to talk to him
asked - namely where and when had he started and how many miles he
averaged per day. Covering about twenty miles a day, it turned out
that he had been walking ever since the first of the year, having
started his journey all the way over on the other side of the
continent in Venice, California!

I asked if he could use anything I might be able to bring him
from the house. The first thing he thought of was ice. Then he
offered to pay me for some sandwiches. He had hoped to visit a
grocery store in Shepherdstown, as he knew the town was just across
the river from the towpath. But what he didn't know was that
getting to the store from the towpath was not such an easy
enterprise for someone who was pulling along a heavy pack. When he
realized what making that little sidetrip would entail in terms of
hills and distance, he decided to bypass the town and make-do with
the supplies he already had. I turned down his money but went back
to the house to make him some sandwiches while my friend chatted
with him. I brought the sandwiches and ice, we wished him good
luck and he hurried on down the towpath to his evening's
destination, the Antietam compground about a mile away.

When I got up the next morning, I got to thinking about the
hiker, and though I thought it was likely he had already broken
camp and was no doubt long gone, I decided to hop on my bike and
take a few pieces of fruit to him if he happened to still be there.
It was a little after nine - but it turned out that Melvin was
still at the campground. He was waiting for breakfast to arrive.
A group of Boy Scouts camping near him had promised to bring him a
nice, hot breakfast. Shortly after I got there, some scouts
arrived with a huge plate of spaghetti. I sat with Melvin while he
ate, and heard some more about his trans-continental adventures.

When I met Melvin McCoy, he had just one tiny traveling
companion, a small canine named Budman. But when he had started on
January 1st, he had had two companions, a human partner and that
fellow's large dog. The partnership was not a long-lived one
however, as the other hiker, as a consequence of not wearing
sunglasses, was stricken with sun-blindness a little way into
Arizona. While continuing alone across Arizona, Melvin learned of
the plight of a small dog at a pound in Casa Grande. The little
fellow was about to be put down - so Melvin decided to give him a
chance to live, even though it wouldn't be an easy life for a small
dog. Budman did not keep him company for long, though. The summer
heat of the southwest proved to be too much for him, so Melvin had
him transported to Tennessee to be returned to him later in the
trip. In fact, when I met up with the two of them, Budman had only
been back on the trail for a couple of days.

When I asked him about how he liked traveling alone, he said
he basically didn't mind - but if he could, he'd have along a cook
and a foot doctor. He had lost 40 pounds since the start of his
trip, something he thought a cook-companion might have remedied.
And his feet had been giving him a fair amount of trouble which is
not too surprising. He was on his 13th pair of boots, a much
larger number than it would have been if he'd had to supply them
himself. However, one of the sponsors of his hike was a boot
manufacturer.

The purpose of his trip was to demonstrate, gain some
publicity for, and test out the pack he was using which was called
the M.U.L.E. (Multi-purpose Uniaxial Litter Enginery) The pack
consisted of several different compartments, one of which was a
five gallon water container, equipped with a long, flexible straw.
It had a single fairly narrow wheel about 10" in diameter with a
handbrake attached to the frame of the pack. So that the user could
stop and get out of the pack, but not have to put it down on the
ground, it came equipped with a double kickstand. There were some
weapons stuck in the sides of the pack.

I hadn't noticed the weapons he was carrying with him until he
pointed them out. What they were were several darts that were to
have been protection against coyotes - but he had never had the
need for using any of them. The most severe natural problem he
encountered on the whole trip had been a tornado somewhere in
Texas. He had sustained some injuries to one of his ankles during
the storm and had to stop walking for a couple of weeks.

He pulled out a sheaf of laminated newspaper clippings about
his trip from various newspapers along the way. A color TV was
another thing he had with him, using it to watch the local news on
days when he had been interviewed, wanting to see how his
presentation had come off so that he could try to do a better job
in any future interviews. He seemed to enjoy the press coverage
and also felt that it offered him a modicum of protection. I don't
know to what extent he may have felt that the fact that he was
black might have added to the amount of potential hostility that a
lone traveler is bound to run into at some point during a trip. He
felt that if people in the towns along the way knew in advance that
he was coming, and that he wasn't a homeless vagabond - but rather
part of a design team that had engineered the wheeled pack that he
was rolling along behind him, he would be less likely to encounter
problems.

However, there was one town where the newspaper article that
preceded him into town not only didn't protect him, but, he felt,
may even have caused the local sheriff to go out of his way to find
him and cause him trouble. As Melvin was approaching Morgantown,
WV, a police car zoomed up to him - screeching to a halt just short
of slamming into him. The two had a rather unpleasant encounter
with the officer threatening to have him arrested if he didn't stay
entirely off the road. Since West Virginia roads do not have
shoulders, trying to roll a wheel off the pavement resented a bit
of a problem.

Morgantown seemed like a good place to get his laundry done.
So he managed to hail a cab on the outskirts of town and go to a
laundromat. On the way, the driver told him of a passenger he had
given a ride to not too long ago - an FBI agent who had ended up
"lost" in the local jail for a week. Now this sounded a little
preposterous to me but, whatever the truth was, Melvin concluded
that he didn't wish to risk another run-in with Sheriff Maygrow and
decided maybe he ought to get out not just of the county, but of
the entire state of West Virginia. So he somehow managed to find
himself a ride all the way to the Maryland border. On the course
of his ride to the western tip of Maryland, he learned of the
existence of the 180 mile long C&O Canal towpath. Following the
towpath, he could get all the way to downtown Washington without
having to compete with cars and trucks for roadspace.

By this time Melvin had finished breakfast and was getting
ready to pack up and move down the towpath. I had begun to wish
that I had brought my camera with me so I could get a picture of
Melvin, Budman and the M.U.L.E. So I told him I was going home to
get a camera and would catch up with him if he had already gotten
on his way. When I eventually headed back to catch up with him, I
was quite amazed at the distance he had put between himself and the
campground in a fairly short amount of time. I rode along with him
as he walked until it was time for him to take a break. We then
had a little photo session, followed by a bit of a botany lesson (I
introduced him to poison ivy and a couple of other plants) and he
learned a new word, "botanize," which he said he would be entering
in his journal when he made his daily entry.

It was a pleasant Sunday morning and a fair number of people
were out on the path. Some stopped and looked at Melvin and his
pack with incredulity, and asked him questions. Others passed by
without so much as a glance, though I feel sure they had to be
quite curious - but just too shy to stop and talk. One couple that
stopped was affiliated with the C&O Canal Association and hoped
that I might contribute a story about Melvin to their newsletter. -